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Tuesday, November 28, 2017

The College Envy, Resentment and Anti-Education Agenda.

1. Please, please stop the bullshit!!! Who really says this, and what "establishment?"

“The establishment has created this thing that if you don’t go to college, you’re somehow not equal to someone else who did,” says Frank Antenori, a former GOP Arizona state legislator and 2016 Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention.

No one on, especially on the "liberal left" has ever said that. Another manufactured villain Republicans have created to make their draconian plan look better, and to scare their voters.

2. Please, please stop the bullshit!!! Does this sound anything like college today?

Donald Trump Jr. recently excoriated universities in Texas, for which he was paid $100,000: "Hate speech is anything that says America is a good country. That our founders were great people. That we need borders. Hate speech is anything faithful to the moral teachings of the Bible.”"(Many universities) take $200,000 of your money; in exchange, we’ll train your children to hate our country. . . . We’ll make them unemployable by teaching them courses in zombie studies, underwater basket weaving and, my personal favorite, tree climbing.”

3. Republicans Hate College: So is it any wonder most Republican voters sneer at being educated:

In July, a Pew Research Center study found that 58 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents believe colleges and universities have a negative effect “on the way things are going in the country,” up from 37 percent two years ago. Democrats...72 percent said they have a positive impact. Other studies show overwhelming numbers of white working-class men do not believe a college degree is worth the cost.

4. Not worth the Cost? Republicans don't believe spending $30 billion a year on Pell grants is worth it since half of these students drop out.

More than 44 million Americans are paying off student loans ... average student loan debt of a 2016 college graduate was $37,000. At $1.4 trillion, U.S. student loan debt is now larger than credit card debt.

Getting back toFrank Antenori, the former GOP Arizona state legislator, he thinks taxpayers "should help pay only for degrees, such as those in engineering, medicine or law, that lead directly to jobs ...

"...(not a) junky” (degree in) “diversity studies or culture studies. You want to create someone who’s going to be a contributor, not a moocher.Go out and generate revenue; that’s what it’s all about.”

There's a liberal take on college education; Steve Farley, a Democratic state senator who is running for governor who used to spar regularly with Antenori:

“That is a basic ethical and moral flaw in this whole argument, that everything’s got to have financial payback so we can reduce taxes for the Koch brothers. This whole idea that government should be run more like a business is so profoundly morally flawed. Government should be run like a family. We should not be manufacturing them (students) to be products to be consumed."Noting the growing amount of money on campuses from conservative donors ... "We choose to give our money away in corporate tax cuts and corporate sales tax loopholes. It’s my crusade to get rid of those loopholes and fund our public education system at every level. The whole liberal bastion idea is just absurd.”

So while Republicans are creating villains to make their bad policies more acceptable, they're missing out on what's really happening, as businesses step forward to help non-college bound students succeed:

Minnesota StarTribune: Companies invest in high schools across state to boost vocational, engineering, other high-demand work: A looming labor shortage, along with a growing urgency to address Minnesota's unyielding racial achievement gap, is prompting sweeping changes in the way businesses participate in hands-on learning.

The focus is no longer just on students who might be better suited to community college and the trades. Across the state, corporations are donating thousands of dollars as well as their employees’ time to teach students how to do such things as draw architect’s plans, make replacement parts with 3-D printers, write computer code, create marketing campaigns and learn basic nursing skills.Companies such as Polaris, Medtronic and Ergotron are helping to develop curricula at Wayzata High School and are working side-by-side with juniors and seniors through the school’s Compass program. Students take an online skills assessment and can select one of four career fields — business management and entrepreneurship; arts and global communications; health sciences; and design, engineering and manufacturing technologies. More than just subject matter, the courses promote teamwork, interpersonal communication and other problem-solving skills needed to be successful in the business world.

Republicans haven't progressed any further than the mid 20th century when untrained high school graduates or dropouts could make a decent living and raise a family. Not true anymore. Even some Republicans are pushing early training in high schools and tech colleges, which means, "if you don’t go to college, you’re somehow not equal to someone else who did”is absolute bullshit and they know it. Can't have it both ways.

Note: The flawed Republican plan for public school is getting rid of most everything else for job training. That's not a long-term strategy for students who will end up having 2, 3, or 4 different professions in their lifetime.